[Merefield]

Originally Posted by tmurphy2

Is it really that much cheaper to make it a FWD?

Originally Posted by bradleyland

Yes, absolutely.

Steel isn't cheap, and components like drive shafts and drive axles use a lot of it. There are also a lot of packaging constraints that FWD solves, making the car less expensive. You can use less metal in the construction of the chassis when building a FWD car. Straight lines are shorter than curved lines when measured along the contour, so the "hump" required to accommodate the drive shaft actually has a measurable impact on the amount of steel used. You can also make a FWD more compact (dimensionally) because the rear axle and suspension doesn't need to accommodate a differential. Also, the engine is oriented transversely, which allows you to make the car shorter.

SNIP

FWD is also cheaper in this context I suspect because it will leverage the parts bin of a volume selling sister car built on the same platform.

Agree that FWD is popular mainly because it gives you more flexibility when designing an interior and facilitating a more spacious and flexible layout. But in the context of a 2 seater sports car that latter benefit is completely irrelevant - a spacious, flexible interior is NOT one of a sports car designer's priorities!!

So this is going to be a boulevard cruiser for ladies with unusually high levels of space for shopping and handbags that won't handle like a proper sports car, whatever this guy says!

It's a little bit embarassing that Mazda can stick to the right formula but BMW can't ....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rear_wh...e#Advantages_2

[Amini77]

This whole FWD thing they're doing is so dumb..BMW is losing it.

"Apart from its stylistic effect, the Hofmeister kink is said by BMW to suggest that all BMW models have rear-wheel drive (or all-wheel drive biased to the rear)"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofmeister_kink

[Meeni]

[u2b]http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=dZTTn2gq67I[/u2b]

What else to say ?

[sc_dan2002]

The only FWD roadster I want is one that the F stands for Four.